Online dictionaryOnline dictionary
Synonyms, antonyms, pronunciation

  Home
English Dictionary      examples: 'day', 'get rid of', 'New York Bay'




Good-natured   /gʊd-nˈeɪtʃərd/   Listen
Good-natured

adjective
1.
Having an easygoing and cheerful disposition.  "The good-natured policeman on our block" , "The sounds of good-natured play"



Related search:



WordNet 3.0 © 2010 Princeton University








Advanced search
     Find words:
Starting with
Ending with
Containing
Matching a pattern  

Synonyms
Antonyms
Quotes
Words linked to  

only single words



Share |
Add this dictionary
to your browser search bar





"Good-natured" Quotes from Famous Books



... river of Sadia to which they came on the 19th of June, finding scarcely enough of water to float the caravel. This kingdom is extensive, and its principal city on the banks of the river has about 10,000 inhabitants. The people are black, simple, and good-natured, having no trade, but have plenty of flesh, maize, tar, tortoises, sandal, ebony, and sweet woods. The name of the king was Capilate, who was an old man much respected and very honest. He received the Portuguese kindly, and even sent his son to guide them along the ...
— A General History and Collection of Voyages and Travels, Volume VII • Robert Kerr

... started out after a new wife, and has had one up on a visit, but says she has 'no conversation'; and I think he will take back the erring and possibly repentant candlestick; whom we all devoutly prefer, as she is not only highly decorative, but good-natured, and if she does little work makes no rows. I tell this lightly, but it really was a heavy business; many were accused of complicity, and Rafael was really very sorry. I had to hold beds of justice - literally - seated in my bed and surrounded by lying Samoans seated on the floor; and there ...
— Vailima Letters • Robert Louis Stevenson

... indomitably good-natured couple, that they would be just even to the elements, which had by no means been generous to them; and they owned that if so noble a storm had celebrated their departure upon some storied river from some more romantic port than New York, they would have thought ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells

... Bahorel was a good-natured mortal, who kept bad company, brave, a spendthrift, prodigal, and to the verge of generosity, talkative, and at times eloquent, bold to the verge of effrontery; the best fellow possible; he had daring waistcoats, and scarlet opinions; a wholesale blusterer, that ...
— Les Miserables - Complete in Five Volumes • Victor Hugo

... she was young, old, or middle-aged; she might so easily have been one of these. Her face was not unpleasant, although her largish dark eyes were quite close to her snub nose, over which the eyebrows met. Her expression was that of good-natured simplicity, while her movements and manner of speaking betrayed great self-consciousness, the result of an immense personal vanity. She was soon to ...
— Sparrows - The Story of an Unprotected Girl • Horace W. C. Newte

... entered into the joke as good-natured as possible, laughed like anything, whipped down the grog, whipped off the leg, and whipped up the knives ...
— Humour of the North • Lawrence J. Burpee

... true," said he. "That was a reason. In effect they are both very good-natured little women. ... You comprehend, as journalist it arrives to me to know all kinds of people ..." He snapped his fingers ... "And as we were opposite the house. In fine, I pray ...
— The Old Wives' Tale • Arnold Bennett

... drew his hand from his pocket and generously gave her a shilling. This was too good an incident for John Bull to lose: a crowd assembled, hurraed, and cried out, "Well done, Billy," at which the good-natured baronet looked back and laughed. How much more pleasing is it to tell of such demeanour than of the foolish pride of the late Sir John Eamer, who turned away one of his travellers merely because he had in one ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Volume 20, No. 562, Saturday, August 18, 1832. • Various

... features also were similar in cast, and sallow in hue; the same the black eyes and hair. John had large whiskers, otherwise the likeness would have been more striking; and his face was not disfigured by the strange black mark. He was the better looking of the two; his face wore an easy, good-natured, free expression; while Frederick's was cold and reserved. Many people called John Massingbird a handsome man. In character they were quite opposite. John was a harum-scarum chap, up to every scrape; Fred was cautious and ...
— Verner's Pride • Mrs. Henry Wood

... right bank, begging piteously to be taken on board, and stating that they had just escaped from the savages. Three of the voyagers, not liking the looks of the men, refused to land, but the fourth, a reckless fellow named Flynn, and the two girls, who were coarse, foolish, good-natured frontier women of the lower sort, took pity upon the seeming fugitives, and insisted on taking them aboard. Accordingly the scow was shoved inshore, and Flynn jumped on the bank, only to be immediately seized by the Indians, who then opened fire on the others. They tried to put off, and fired ...
— The Winning of the West, Volume Three - The Founding of the Trans-Alleghany Commonwealths, 1784-1790 • Theodore Roosevelt

... Mr. Browning told her of this sudden change in Ben, and then with a sigh as she thought how many times his soft, good-natured heart would probably be wrung, she went back to the preparations for her bridal, which were on a magnificent scale. They were going to Europe—they would spend the winter in Paris, and as Mr. Browning had several influential acquaintances there, ...
— Rosamond - or, The Youthful Error • Mary J. Holmes

... collection of scraps which an ingenious mother has pieced together. A little boy, wearing the blue callot of a poilu on the back of his head, sits on the doorsill. He smiles and stands up, and tells me his mother is inside. Within I find the mother seated in a room of good-natured disorder, nursing her latest born. Her lavish smile of welcome lights her broad sunburned face framed in tawny braids, and she indicates a bench for me with the ease and authority of a long practiced hostess. She sits there with the infant at her ample breast, and on her face is written unquestioning ...
— Where the Sabots Clatter Again • Katherine Shortall

... and used to talk to her as much as she'd let him, when she was at George Storefield's and any other place where he met her. He wouldn't have had much chance of saying the second word, only he was a good-natured, amusing sort, and always as respectful to her as if she'd been a lady. Besides, Aileen had a kind of fancy that it might make things no worse for us if she was civil to him. Any way, she thought, as women will do, that she might get something out of ...
— Robbery Under Arms • Thomas Alexander Browne, AKA Rolf Boldrewood

... even in the horrid red work of slaughter-houses, often running long distances and climbing over walls and roofs to see a pig killed, as soon as we heard the desperately earnest squealing. And if the butcher was good-natured, we begged him to let us get a near view of the mysterious insides and to give us a bladder to blow up for ...
— The Story of My Boyhood and Youth • John Muir

... them to the quarters of the bandmaster, "you will have rather a difficult course to steer, but I have no doubt you will get through it with credit. This is something like a school, and you will have to fight before you find your place. Don't be in a hurry to begin; take all good-natured chaff good-naturedly; resent any attempt at bullying. I have no doubt you will be popular, and it is well that you should be so, for then there will be no jealousy if your luck seems better than that of others. They will, of course, know that you are differently born and educated to themselves, ...
— The Young Buglers • G.A. Henty

... a slight accident," she said to the astonished maid. "He has fallen and hurt his foot, and it is quite impossible for him to walk up to the house. He mentioned Mrs. Crampton; perhaps you will ask her what is to be done," and the girl, a good-natured, buxom country lass, at ...
— Doctor Luttrell's First Patient • Rosa Nouchette Carey

... 'To sit still and be pumped into is never an exhilarating process.' But pumping is different. How often have I myself, my adieus seemingly done, my hat in my hand and my feet on the threshold, taken a fresh grip, hat or no hat, on the pump-handle, and set good-natured, Christian folk distressedly wondering if I would never stop! And how often have I afterward recalled something strained and morbidly intent in their expressions, a glassiness of the staring eye and a starchiness in the ...
— The Perfect Gentleman • Ralph Bergengren

... were often inclined to push a joke to rudeness, and what began in fun often ended in a fight. Still, they were good-natured, honest people. They were kind to those needing assistance, and if necessity became common so did the ...
— A Sketch of the History of Oneonta • Dudley M. Campbell

... vast mining properties. He lives in New York and in Newport. Comfortably, and at a distance, he runs and rules his mines. He is good-natured enough, kind-hearted. He means well. He does not see the corpses brought up from the fire-damp. He does not notice the hollow chests of young children with the pores of their skin and the pores of their lungs full of ...
— Editorials from the Hearst Newspapers • Arthur Brisbane

... handed," mused the good-natured physician. "I think they would be glad to get you. There is lots of heavy lifting that tells on the nurses, and all that sort of thing, you know. It will be two weeks before Zaidos can be discharged. That bone is not ...
— Shelled by an Unseen Foe • James Fiske

... not be afraid.; there is no man whom I love better than Porthos, because he is so simple-minded and good-natured. Porthos is so straightforward in everything. Since I have become a bishop, I have looked for these primeval natures, which make me love truth ...
— Louise de la Valliere • Alexandre Dumas, Pere

... I'll never go back there while Hannah is around. It's only a couple of shacks. Nothing to see but Bentley's camp. You see," in answer to the unspoken inquiry, "Bentley is an awful smart boy, who had to be taken out of school. He has a nice, good-natured big brother, Roger, who came down here, rented land from Uncle Pete, and pitched a couple of tents on Luna Land. They were on the other side of the island, but Ben had the carrier pigeons and we made up all kinds of outdoor ...
— The Girl Scouts at Sea Crest - The Wig Wag Rescue • Lillian Garis

... answered Cooke and Cartwright and Somers, and two others whose names Joel did not catch. "The wealth, beauty, and fashion will attend in a body," continued Cooke, a stout, good-natured-looking boy of about nineteen, who, as Joel afterward learned, was universally acknowledged to be the dullest scholar in school. "Patriotism and—er—school spirit, you know, March, demand it." And Cooke helped himself bountifully to ...
— The Half-Back • Ralph Henry Barbour

... same way that the clerk follows the clergyman in that prayer of the Anglican liturgy which says "we have erred and strayed from our ways like lost sheep." An Italian audience is certainly very indulgent and good-natured, as they never hiss, ...
— After Waterloo: Reminiscences of European Travel 1815-1819 • Major W. E Frye

... will, thin." And up went good-natured Pat, after laying an old board over the hogshead to stand on; for there were spikes all along the top of the wall, and only cats ...
— The Louisa Alcott Reader - A Supplementary Reader for the Fourth Year of School • Louisa M. Alcott

... Max smiled upon her with good-natured indulgence. "Have you suddenly taken fright at something?" ...
— The Keeper of the Door • Ethel M. Dell

... she did not, unless she went home with them; and turning to her 'good man,' asked him if the stranger could not share their home for the night, to which he cheerfully assented. Sojourner thought it evident he had been taking a drop too much, but as he was civil and good-natured, and she did not feel inclined to spend the night alone in the open air, she felt driven to the necessity of accepting their hospitality, whatever it might prove to be. The woman soon informed her that there was a ball in the place, at which they would like to drop in a while, before ...
— The Narrative of Sojourner Truth • Sojourner Truth

... hot one, yet there was no lack of vigour among the people; on the contrary, they were a very hardy race, and capable of great endurance. For the hundredth time I thought that, take them all round, I had never seen their equals in respect of physique, and they looked as good-natured as they were robust. The flowers were for the most part over, but their absence was in some measure compensated for by a profusion of delicious fruit, closely resembling the figs, peaches, and pears of ...
— Erewhon • Samuel Butler

... family parade, "I'm hep to the situation. It's a cutey, take it from little Ikey. I'll have to charge you $8 for the sudden attack of deafness; then there's $19 for hardships sustained by my finger joints while conversing. The rest of the 100 iron men I'm going to keep as a souvenir of two good-natured ginks who wouldn't know what to do with a ...
— You Should Worry Says John Henry • George V. Hobart

... pleasant and entertaining and amusing. Why, Stan, I don't suppose that in all his life he ever did one single thing that was necessary or useful. He even had a man to help him dress. He is cultured and intellectual, and bright and witty, and clean and good-natured, possessing, in fact, all the qualifications of a desirable lap dog, and you can't help liking him, just as you would ...
— When A Man's A Man • Harold Bell Wright

... half an hour or so to the Latimer Arms. "I've got a kind of tea-dinner," he said—"chops and that sort of thing. You'd better have some." But it was of no use. So when he came back to the house the good-natured fellow brought some more provisions, and begged Lucy Greenwell to make some tea, which he ...
— Lippincott's Magazine, December 1878 • Various

... exchanging jokes with the Prime Minister of Great Britain. I saw a corpulent man, ludicrously like the King's pictures, with bulging gray eyes that seemed to take in nothing. And this was North, upon whose conduct with the King depended the fate of our America. Good-natured he was, and his laziness was painfully apparent. He had the reputation of going to sleep ...
— The Crossing • Winston Churchill

... of the book—for whose actuality and historicity the author vouches—is an orphan brought up on a farm by his Uncle Peabody and Aunt Deel. Getting into all sorts of scrapes, he makes up his mind that he is too heavy a burden on the affectionate and good-natured couple; and one night he runs away. Out in the darkness, however, he meets with strange adventures, loses his way, and at length finds himself in the hands of Silas Wright, the Comptroller. The Senator first falls in love with the bright-faced, ...
— A Handful of Stars - Texts That Have Moved Great Minds • Frank W. Boreham

... on her way, and we being again alone in the rude little shanty, the good-natured freedman told me ...
— Voyage of The Paper Canoe • N. H. Bishop

... receive a fair lady's refusal with a good-natured shrug, as merely the result of a bad venture, and hope for better luck next time; but to a greater number this is impossible, especially if they are played with and deceived. Walter Gregory pre-eminently belonged to the latter class. In early life he had breathed the very atmosphere ...
— Opening a Chestnut Burr • Edward Payson Roe

... too terribly grave—she had followed him in his pursuit of pleasure: SO she might, precisely, mark her detachment. This was handsome trouble for her to take—the Prince could see it all: it wasn't a shade of interference that a good-natured man would visit on her. So he didn't even say, when she told him how frumpy she knew herself, how frumpy her very maid, odiously going back on her, rubbed it into her, night and morning, with unsealed eyes and lips, that she now knew her—he ...
— The Golden Bowl • Henry James

... German headquarters was William Howard Russell of the Times, respecting whom—perhaps because he kept himself somewhat aloof from his colleagues—a variety of scarcely good-natured stories were related; mostly designed to show that he somewhat over-estimated his own importance. One yarn was to the effect that whenever the Doctor mounted his horse, it was customary for the Crown Prince of Prussia—afterwards the Emperor Frederick—to hold his stirrup leather ...
— My Days of Adventure - The Fall of France, 1870-71 • Ernest Alfred Vizetelly

... severely handled in the process, and it occupied him all his strength—i.e. all that remained—to walk back to Keighley. Spink was a man who must speak his mind, and could not bear to hear the views and principles which he upheld ruthlessly set at nought. He was, at bottom, a good-natured man; indeed, I think I scarcely ever came across a man with a more sympathetic disposition. In any deserving public object, or case of private distress in the town, he was the first to the rescue. Unfortunately, he suffered much from a diseased leg, ...
— Adventures and Recollections • Bill o'th' Hoylus End

... always to learn more about the wireless, had ingratiated himself with the Patrol's wireless man and was eagerly examining his instruments and plying him with questions. At first the operator answered with good-natured tolerance as one replies to the queries of a child. But when he saw how much Henry actually knew, and found that though he was only a boy he had already acted as operator at a government wireless ...
— The Secret Wireless - or, The Spy Hunt of the Camp Brady Patrol • Lewis E. Theiss

... irregular sort. But the town itself was a weight upon his spirits after his experience with the rushing, business-like, systematised cities of the North and East. Here he was often flung a dollar, but too frequently a good-natured kick would follow it. Once a band of hilarious cowboys had roped him on Military Plaza and dragged him across the black soil until no respectable rag-bag would have stood sponsor for his clothes. The winding, doubling streets, leading nowhere, ...
— Heart of the West • O. Henry

... brass, the wheel is inlaid with brass, and the capstan-head, the gangway-stanchions, and bucket-hoops are of the same glittering metal. Forward of the main hatchway the long-boat stands in its chocks, covered over with a roof, and a good-natured looking cow, whose stable is thus contrived, protrudes her head from a window, chews her cud with as much composure as if standing under the lee of a Yankee barn-yard wall, and watches, apparently, a group of sailors, who, seated in the forward waist around their kids and pans, are enjoying ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII. No. 3. March 1848 • Various

... good company, and of a very readie and pleasant smooth witt." The bust of him in Stratford Church was coloured; it gave him light hazel eyes, and auburn hair and beard. Rowe says of him that "besides the advantages of his witt, he was in himself a good-natured man, of too great sweetness in his manners, and a most ...
— The Man Shakespeare • Frank Harris

... it is, however, that tempts men to repose—and for my part I believe him to be rather an Aeon than a Devil: that is, a good-natured fellow working on his own account neither good nor ill—whatever being it is, it certainly suits one's mood, for I never yet knew a man determined to be lazy that had not ample opportunity afforded him, though he were ...
— The Path to Rome • Hilaire Belloc

... remember all in a moment what one's sorrows are," said the good-natured girl: "wait a little. When I think of sundry great misfortunes in the world, about which I have heard people talking at times, then indeed there does not seem to be very much in what I have had to go through: ...
— The Old Man of the Mountain, The Lovecharm and Pietro of Abano - Tales from the German of Tieck • Ludwig Tieck

... to give himself a warlike and ferocious appearance; in this, he was partially successful, having the drawbacks of a remarkably gentle and humane countenance, and a pair of mild blue eyes. He was a very good-natured young man, and had shot a wild turkey in Mexico, the tail of which he had brought home to Mrs. Moore, to be made into a fan. (This fan, too, was in the parlor, of which may be said what was once thought ...
— Aunt Phillis's Cabin - Or, Southern Life As It Is • Mary H. Eastman

... other, whatever plan I determined to adopt, my fancy, good-natured pander of our wishes, always linked you on to it; or I made it your plan, and linked myself on. I left my home, December 20, 1803, intending to stay a day and a half at Grasmere, and then to walk to Kendal, whither I had sent all my clothes and viatica; from thence to go to London, ...
— Reminiscences of Samuel Taylor Coleridge and Robert Southey • Joseph Cottle

... fifty years of age, was hollow, and almost as weather-worn as his apparel, with a long hooked nose, prominent chin, a wide mouth exceedingly straight and pinched, with a melancholy or contemplative twist at the corners, and a pair of black staring eyes, that beamed a good-natured, humble, and perhaps submissive, simplicity of disposition. His gait, too, as he stumbled along up the hill, with a shuffling, awkward, hesitating step, was like that of a man who apprehended injury and insult, and who did not possess ...
— Nick of the Woods • Robert M. Bird

... appetites of which he was throughout his loathsome life the slave and the victim. He seems to have passed the last twenty years of his reign in doing deeds that give flat contradiction to the theory set up by his good-natured admirers of after-times, that he was the victim of circumstances, and that, though one of the mildest and most merciful of men in fact, those villanous circumstances did compel him to become a tyrant, a murderer, a repudiator of sacramental and pecuniary and diplomatic ...
— Atlantic Monthly, Vol. 10, No. 57, July, 1862 - A Magazine Of Literature, Art, And Politics • Various

... company swung into this joyous and exciting dance. Samuel Sprink, seizing Irma, whirled her off into the crowd struggling and protesting, but all in vain. After the dance there was a general rush for the beer keg, with much noise and good-natured horse play. At the other end of the room, however, there was a fierce struggle going on. Samuel Sprink, excited by the dance and, it must be confessed, by an unusual devotion to the beer keg that evening, was still ...
— The Foreigner • Ralph Connor

... indeed; Miss Jamison was anything but a "slob," as one soon found out who had occasion to deal with her very long. A shrewd, exacting, penny-for-penny and dollar-for-dollar business woman was concealed under the mask of her good-natured face and air of motherly solicitude. Miss Jamison, at the very start-out of her career, was inspired to call her little "snide" boarding-house after the founder of the particular creed professed by the congregation of the neighboring church. The result was that "The ...
— The Long Day - The Story of a New York Working Girl As Told by Herself • Dorothy Richardson

... bonhomie. His appearance in the proscribed uniform might have been considered by Austria, if her police authorities could have appreciated the fun of the thing, as wholesomely calculated to throw ridicule on the hated institution. He was utterly unassuming, and good-natured in his manner, and when seen in his ordinary black habiliments looked more like a well-to-do Jewish trader than ...
— What I Remember, Volume 2 • Thomas Adolphus Trollope

... accommodations. They were charged two dollars and a half per day—the same price they charged at first-class hotels in New York and Boston, while their rooms and fare were very far from luxurious. The landlord was a stout, jolly host, with a round, good-natured face. ...
— The Young Adventurer - or Tom's Trip Across the Plains • Horatio Alger

... away, vastly pleased to have my peace made, yet a little concerned in conscience; nor could I help wondering, as I went back, whether, perhaps, I had not been a scruple too good-natured. But there was the fact, that this was a man that might have been my father, an able man, a great dignitary, and one that, in the hour of my need, had reached a hand to my assistance. I was in the better humour ...
— The Works of Robert Louis Stevenson - Swanston Edition Vol. 11 (of 25) • Robert Louis Stevenson

... uttered a cry of despair, and the young creatures, who were so happy a moment ago, fell to sobbing in one another's arms so piteously, that the instruments of oppression drew back a step and were ashamed; but one of them that was good-natured stepped up under pretence of separating them, and ...
— The Cloister and the Hearth • Charles Reade

... responded to marked attentions. The atmosphere he loved was that of general and social gayety. The girls that he singled out for his especial regard were noted for their vivacity and intelligence, as well as their beauty. Meanwhile he had won a reputation for his good-natured attentions to "wall-flowers." Such kindly efforts were rarely made at the promptings of conscience. The truth was, he enjoyed life so fully himself that he disliked to see any one having a dismal time. It gave him genuine pleasure to come to a plain-featured, neglected damsel, and set all ...
— A Young Girl's Wooing • E. P. Roe

... plenty chow-chow?" my good-natured Chinese elevator-boy in Shanghai used to say to me after dinner; and the bright-eyed little brats at the temples in Peking used to explain their failure to do anything forbidden by saying they should get "plenty bamboo chow-chow"! Bamboos are used for switches (as well as for ten thousand ...
— Where Half The World Is Waking Up • Clarence Poe

... the tedious time, they heard a confused noise as of some sudden tumult.—Tho' they had now been above a year in Russia, none of them could speak the language well enough to be understood, so could receive no information from the guard, even should they have proved good-natured enough to be willing to satisfy their curiosity, so they all run hastily up to the round tower, whence they easily perceived the town in great confusion, and the people running in such crowds, that in the hurry many ...
— The Fortunate Foundlings • Eliza Fowler Haywood

... April Green" and "The Battle of Waterloo" (the first and the last tale in the Norwegian edition) are more untinged with a moral tendency than any of the foregoing. The former is a mere jeu d'esprit, full of good-natured satire on the calf-love of very young people, and the amusing over-estimate of our importance to which we are all, at that ...
— Essays on Scandinavian Literature • Hjalmar Hjorth Boyesen

... before from Rome, thirty odd (and peculiar) miles distant; and now with the same horses they had to make twenty-three miles more before ten A. M., according to agreement. Rocjean and Caper sat outside the carriage, while Dexter sat inside, and conversed with two other passengers, cheerful and good-natured people, who did all in their power to make everybody around them contented ...
— The Continental Monthly, Vol. 3, No. 1 January 1863 - Devoted To Literature And National Policy • Various

... but that utterly unrepressible light-heartedness of his—there was no doing any thing with it. There was so to speak, "no catching hold" of Ascott. He meant no harm. She repeated over and over again that the lad meant no harm. He had no evil ways; was always pleasant, good-natured, and affectionate, in his own careless fashion; but was no more to be relied on than a straw that every wind blows hither and thither; or, to use a common simile, a butterfly that never sees any thing farther than the nearest flower. His was, in short, the pleasure-loving temperament, not ...
— Mistress and Maid • Dinah Craik (aka: Miss Mulock)

... kept it? Why show this uncalled-for valor, this extraordinary alacrity at sinking? Sink or blow yourself up as much as you please, but your Royal Highness must see that the genteel thing would have been to wait until you were asked to do so, before you offended good-natured, honest people, who—heaven help them!—have never shown themselves at all murderously inclined towards you. A man knocks up his cabins forsooth, throws his tables and chairs overboard, runs guns into the portholes, and calls le quartier du bord ou existaient ces chambres, Lacedaemon. ...
— The Second Funeral of Napoleon • William Makepeace Thackeray (AKA "Michael Angelo Titmarch")

... as she sings. Clive Newcome is in a rapture; so is good-natured Miss Rosey, whose little heart beats with pleasure, and who says quite unaffectedly to Miss Sherrick, with delight and gratitude beaming from her blue eyes, "Why did you ask me to sing, when you sing so wonderfully, so beautifully, yourself? Do not leave the piano, please—do sing again!" And she ...
— The Newcomes • William Makepeace Thackeray

... by little—an intimacy which lasted one, two, three years—the usual duration of that sort of thing. Then, as usually happens, there came a rupture—a rupture which is sometimes violent, sometimes gentle, but which is never altogether good-natured. Then also, as usual in such cases, each went a separate way—the eternal ending, which is always prosaic, because it is true to life. But the one thing that distinguishes Jean's liaison from the usual affair is the truly admirable character of ...
— A Comedy of Marriage & Other Tales • Guy De Maupassant

... like big men; they are almost always good-natured; and if I had to decide between you and the Baron, I should choose you. Monsieur Hulot is amusing, handsome, and has a figure; but you, you are substantial, and then—you see—you look an even greater scamp than ...
— Cousin Betty • Honore de Balzac

... speaking, Miss Anna Maria stood laughing and smiling at me, trying to gain my attention and confidence. As I looked at her I thought she must be very good-natured. She was short, and very round and fat, with black twinkling eyes and a somewhat dark complexion, a smile constantly playing on her mouth. Her sisters, as I have remarked, reminded me very strongly of their brother. They all made a great deal of me, and still more of the Little ...
— Ben Burton - Born and Bred at Sea • W. H. G. Kingston

... arrayed in black robes, which, by their weight and coarseness, recalled Eastern fashions of mourning, which Spain derived from the Moors. She attempted a little Spanish talk with El Visconde, much to his inconvenience, though he was too joyous not to be doubly good-natured, especially as he pitied her, and regarded her as a very perplexing ...
— Dynevor Terrace (Vol. II) • Charlotte M. Yonge

... Von Breuning. He and Beethoven took violin lessons of Franz Ries. Stephen von Breuning liked Beethoven from the start and introduced him at his mother's house. The Breunings were in good circumstances, cultivated, good-natured and hospitable. They delighted in having him about, and treated him with the utmost consideration. Madame von Breuning formed a sincere, motherly affection for him; he was soon on a footing in their house almost equal to that of a member of the family. He went with them about this time ...
— Beethoven • George Alexander Fischer

... he answered. It was as if he were talking to a boy who was good-natured but tiresome. "I don't feel like eating. Maybe afterward ...
— The Best Short Stories of 1915 - And the Yearbook of the American Short Story • Various

... she going to explain to the child to whom he had done this hideous wrong? Was it any use saying that Terence had always been good-natured? She remembered oddly after many years a day when he had turned away from the glazing eyes of a wood-pigeon he had shot. What use to tell such things to his daughter, whose life was laid in ruins by that sin of his youth? Those tragical eyes would confute her in the midst of her excuses. ...
— Love of Brothers • Katharine Tynan

... license, for the discipline of the German Army is proverbially stringent, and its obedience implicit. Not from any special ferocity of the troops, for whoever has traveled among the German peasantry knows that they are as kindly and good-natured as any people in Europe, and those who can recall the war of 1870 will remember that no charges resembling those proved by these depositions were then established. The excesses recently committed in Belgium were, moreover too widespread ...
— New York Times Current History; The European War, Vol 2, No. 3, June, 1915 - April-September, 1915 • Various

... inquisitive, and never neglected an opportunity to spy and gossip, considering it a part of her duties to learn everything possible of the private affairs of the lodgers. Quite unlike the traditional, smiling, good-natured "mammy" of the South, she was one of those cunning, crafty, heartless, surly Northern negresses, who, to the number of thousands, seek employment as maids with women of easy morals, and, infesting a certain district ...
— The Easiest Way - A Story of Metropolitan Life • Eugene Walter and Arthur Hornblow

... beside yourself. That woman is one of the most good-natured, shrewd, clever and amiable women I have ever met. ...
— Lippincott's Magazine of Popular Literature and Science, Vol. 12, No. 32, November, 1873 • Various

... of love, would have been—a supplanter. For the first time in her life she was torn with passionate jealousy; existence became a nightmare to her. Urged on by Caroline, and her own pain, she ventured to remonstrate with Christopher, also. She had expected a burst of rage, but he was surprisingly good-natured. ...
— Further Chronicles of Avonlea • Lucy Maud Montgomery

... Germain, I sung, I jumped; it was enough to make one crazy. At length our marriage was fixed for two weeks ago yesterday. Two days previous, who should arrive in a fine carriage but a stout, bald gentleman, with a very good-natured look, who brought me from M. Rudolph a wedding gift. Just imagine, Louise, a large rosewood box, with these words written in gold on a plate of blue enamel: 'Industry and Virtue, Love and Happiness.' I opened the ...
— Mysteries of Paris, V3 • Eugene Sue

... the merrier! I'm right down glad to see you," said good-natured Mrs. Stokes, coming to lift the children down and kissing ...
— A Missionary Twig • Emma L. Burnett

... Powell," said Ellis, arranging his group, and introducing Shoni as a shadowy background. With a few deft touches of his brush he had drawn the outlines of his picture, with good-natured artfulness devoting much time to finishing off Corwen and ...
— By Berwen Banks • Allen Raine

... noisy crowd, but perfectly good-natured; and with the freehandedness characteristic of the sailor ashore, bought the best Yancey could provide. The restaurant proprietor ...
— Navy Boys Behind the Big Guns - Sinking the German U-Boats • Halsey Davidson

... shank of a son, Jefferson, who lived upon quinine, ague and deviltry; and there were the two daughters, Fanchon and Virginia. The latter was three years older than Fanchon, as dark as Fanchon was fair, though not nearly so pretty: a small, good-natured, romping sprite of a girl, who had handed down the heart and hand of Crailey Gray to her sister with the best grace in the world. For she had been the heroine of one of Mr. Gray's half-dozen or so most serious affairs, and, after a furious rivalry with Mr. Carewe, the victory was generally ...
— The Two Vanrevels • Booth Tarkington

... at my card, and read Boller's letter. Evidently it amused him, for the half-burned cigarette in his mouth moved convulsively, and as he came toward me there sprang up in my mind doubts as to Boller's estimate of him. But he proved a good-natured young man and certainly very modest. Sitting on the ancient office-boy's desk, he addressed me in low tones, as though he feared to be overheard. He was glad to know any friend of Boller's, but evidently Boller was laboring under a misapprehension ...
— David Malcolm • Nelson Lloyd

... their old friends. Might it not be possible if they both could be happy at Durton that there they might remain with some minimum of intercourse with the world? Six months had now passed by since they had become engaged and no good-natured friend had as yet told him the truth. Might it not be possible that the same silence should be as yet preserved? If years could be made to run on then he would have become used to her, and the telling of the secret would not ...
— Kept in the Dark • Anthony Trollope

... to move around. You can appreciate that anything so slow and heavy would be at the mercy of more agile forms of life. There was no use in our relying on physical defenses. How could we win? Too heavy to run, too soft to fight, too good-natured ...
— Beyond Lies the Wub • Philip Kindred Dick

... outrages. But, preposterously, you began with violence; and before terrors could have any effect, either good or bad, your ministers immediately begged pardon, and promised that repeal to the obstinate Americans which they had refused in an easy, good-natured, complying British Parliament. The assemblies, which had been publicly and avowedly dissolved for their contumacy, are called together to receive your submission. Your ministerial directors blustered like tragic tyrants here; and then went mumping with a sore leg in America, canting, ...
— The Works of the Right Honourable Edmund Burke, Vol. II. (of 12) • Edmund Burke

... he was about to turn and go on his round again, a burst of laughter came from the direction of the officers' wing. He stood still and drew in his head as if from a blow on the back of his neck, and a gleam of ungovernable hatred flitted over his broad, good-natured peasant face. He spat out again, to soothe his feelings, then took a fresh start and passed the merry ...
— Men in War • Andreas Latzko

... said in a good-natured, though slightly vexed tone; and a curious kind of smile flitted over the rather grim face of the person to whom ...
— From Out the Vasty Deep • Mrs. Belloc Lowndes

... as it is called, 'to his religious duties,' being present at the services in chapel two or three times a day with unfailing regularity, and showing, to outward appearance, a real sense of religious obligation in the energy and purity of his life. In private he was good-humoured and good-natured. His letters to his secretaries, though never undignified, are simple, easy, and unrestrained, and the letters written by them to him are similarly plain and business-like, as if the writers knew that the person whom ...
— Froude's History of England • Charles Kingsley

... for the holidays, for masses, for wax candles, etc. As a big piece of copper makes more ring than gold, it is generally given, and always gratefully received. Sometimes they will enter into conversation, and are always pleased to have a little chat about the weather. They are very poor, very good-natured, and very dirty. It is a pity they do not baptize themselves a little more with the material water of this world. But they seem to have a hydrophobia. Whatever the inside of the platter may be, the outside is far from clean. They walk by day ...
— The Atlantic Monthly, Vol. IV, No. 22, Aug., 1859 • Various

... greatly moved on several of these occasions, to make a few statements in reply to some of the orators, and which might possibly have let a little light upon minds willing to know the truth; but I doubted whether even the proverbially good-natured and courteous Palmyrenes might not take umbrage at it. As I turned from one of these little knots of politicians, I encountered Otho, a nobleman of Palmyra and one of the Queen's council. 'I was just asking myself,' said I, saluting him, 'whether the ...
— Zenobia - or, The Fall of Palmyra • William Ware

... promised him her picture! She sends it later, and it is still in the Mozart Museum, showing her, as Jahn declares, to have a good-natured and cheerful face, and rather a stocky figure; he adds, "Without being beautiful she seems right pleasing." It is certain that in whatever butterfly humour Mozart regarded her, she took him and his kisses and his flowery declarations seriously. Had he not said in ...
— The Love Affairs of Great Musicians, Volume 1 • Rupert Hughes

... met, and although Rodney Gray and his followers had been reinforced by nearly all the students belonging to the seceded States, the Union boys were strong enough to drive them down stairs, through the hall, and out of the building. They tried to be as good-natured as they could about it, but there were a few fights that took place before the peaceable ones could interfere, and the result was that Rodney Gray and some others found themselves in the guard-house. But they were never brought to trial, for, after that, events came thick and fast, ...
— True To His Colors • Harry Castlemon

... with his heavy, good-natured face, lighted by an expression of profound content; and his wife is by his side, looking less calm and placid than usual, though she is very happy. It may be that she fears for her daughter's future welfare, though that can scarcely be when the dearest wish of her heart is about ...
— Graham's Magazine Vol XXXII No. 6 June 1848 • Various

... to the scouring for which Caitilin made instant preparation. When they were cleaned she pointed to a couple of flat stones against the wall of the cave and bade them sit down and be good, and this the children did, fixing their eyes on Pan with the cheerful gravity and curiosity which good-natured youngsters always give to ...
— The Crock of Gold • James Stephens

... His heroes were Alexander, Caesar, and Charlemagne. He laid great stress on aristocratic birth and the antiquity of his own family. He had no other regard for men than a foreman in a manufactory feels for his work-people. In private, without being amiable, he was good-natured. His sisters got from him all they wanted. Simple and easy in private life, he showed himself to little advantage in the great world. Nothing could be more awkward than he in a drawing-room. He would have made great sacrifices to have added three inches to his height. He walked on ...
— Beacon Lights of History, Volume IX • John Lord

... is one of the most dangerous of beasts. Although it belongs to the same great family as the lazy, good-natured pig that lies in utter contentment in the farmer's pen, it is an altogether different creature, and few animals ...
— Harper's Young People, February 17, 1880 - An Illustrated Weekly • Various

... of the Western Reserve and Lowell are extreme types of clientele, each represents fairly well the peculiar following of Greeley and of Godkin, which differed as much as did the personal traits of the two journalists. Godkin speaks of Greeley's "odd attire, shambling gait, simple, good-natured and hopelessly peaceable face, and long yellow locks."[174] His "old white hat and white coat," which in New York were regarded as an affectation, counted with his following west of the Hudson River as a winning eccentricity. When he came out ...
— Historical Essays • James Ford Rhodes

... coffee and sugar and place the articles he had bought for his mother in a conspicuous position, so that she would be sure to see them, the moment she entered the door. While he was thus engaged, Dan came in smiling, and trying to look good-natured. David was on his guard ...
— The Boy Trapper • Harry Castlemon

... little proud of the thickness of the fleeces of their respective flocks and much good-natured banter ...
— The Story of Wool • Sara Ware Bassett

... was Joe Sheppard, and he was a Cherokee Indian. Tall and slim and handsome. He had black eyes and mustache but his hair was iron gray, and everybody liked him because he was so good-natured and kind. ...
— Slave Narratives, Oklahoma - A Folk History of Slavery in the United States From - Interviews with Former Slaves • Various

... at last: a thousand thoughts go rushing through my brain as, with a scowling {98} brow and infernal mental struggle to control my passions, I ride, smoking, down to Downing Street. To be calm and good-natured, even playful, down to the last, is my policy; to hint at my resources without bullying and menace will be good taste. The Ante-Room, the Abomination of Desolation. Enter Mr Howe at last, Earl Grey and Mr Hawes looking very grim and self-complacent. Two to ...
— The Tribune of Nova Scotia - A Chronicle of Joseph Howe • W. L. (William Lawson) Grant

... at all complacent when he walked home afterwards, and thought how extremely good-natured he had been, for he could not but feel that this marvellous forbearance was a sort of mistletoe growth on him, quite foreign really to his nature. Never before had Lucia showed so shrewish and venomous a temper; he had not thought ...
— Queen Lucia • E. F. Benson

... somewhat shocked at this recital; but she was good-natured, and her sense of wrong had been growing dull so many years that she ...
— Ruth Arnold - or, the Country Cousin • Lucy Byerley

... the regeneration of her sex that manly things were, perhaps on the whole, what she understood best. Mr. Burrage was rather a handsome youth, with a laughing, clever face, a certain sumptuosity of apparel, an air of belonging to the "fast set"—a precocious, good-natured man of the world, curious of new sensations and containing, perhaps, the making of a dilettante. Being, doubtless, a little ambitious, and liking to flatter himself that he appreciated worth in lowly forms, he had associated himself with the ruder ...
— The Bostonians, Vol. I (of II) • Henry James

... So tall, handsome, good-natured, with a vivid love of colour and beauty and a light-heartedness almost beyond belief,—light-heartedness which had carried him through dangers that might have proved too much for one less gay—Humayon set to work to lavish his money ...
— The Adventures of Akbar • Flora Annie Steel

... you always destroy my finest emotions by having created me thus! I feel almost like taking off my boots and softly climbing up that tree yonder; she must be perching there. (Stamping in the pit.) The nightingale is good-natured not to let herself be interrupted even by this martial music; she must taste delicious; I am forgetting all about my hunting with these sweet dreams. Truly, there's no game to be ...
— The German Classics of The Nineteenth and Twentieth Centuries, Vol. IV • Editor-in-Chief: Kuno Francke

... bore me up the long slope of Tai-shan were as good-natured as they were muscular. There is no difficulty about ascending the mountain, for a stone-paved path about ten feet wide runs from base to summit. The maker of this road is unknown as the earliest records and monuments refer only to repairs. But he builded well and evidently with "an unlimited ...
— An Inevitable Awakening • ARTHUR JUDSON BROWN

... from his own privy purse; thus inducing them to adopt every possible expedient in order to increase their diminished incomes. Sympathizing with the annoyance of his impoverished courtiers, and anxious to silence their murmurs, the good-natured and reckless sovereign seldom met their requests with a denial, and from this abuse a number of petty taxes, each perhaps insignificant in itself, but in the aggregate amounting to a heavy infliction upon the people, were levied on all sides, and under all pretences; and the evil at length became ...
— The Life of Marie de Medicis, Vol. 1 (of 3) • Julia Pardoe

... able to suggest to Mr. Mason of Groby that the matter should be allowed to rest." And then Mr. Furnival took his leave, still thinking how far it might be possible that the enemy's side of the question might be supported by real merits. Mr. Round was a good-natured old fellow, and if the case could be inveigled out of his son's hands and into his own, it might be possible that even ...
— Orley Farm • Anthony Trollope

... find it hard to speak of them without a catch in my throat and moisture in my eyes. I see them before me now in the fair land of France—brave, strong, ardent; keen and quick-witted; kindly and clean and modest and wholly free from boasting; good-humored and good-natured; willingly submissive to unaccustomed discipline; uncomplainingly enduring all manner of hardships and discomforts; utterly contemptuous of danger, daring to a fault, holding life cheap for the honor and glory of America. ...
— Winning a Cause - World War Stories • John Gilbert Thompson and Inez Bigwood

... chance, or by urgency and entreaty. Christopher had such fast hold of possession, that it was only after sore wrestling that he let go; and yet his heart was kind, at least to-day it was so disposed, but the tempter whispered: "It is not easy to find so good-natured a fellow as you. How readily would you have given, had the man been in want, and your good intention must go for the deed." Still, on the other hand, there was something in him which made opposition,—an ...
— Christian Gellert's Last Christmas - From "German Tales" Published by the American Publishers' Corporation • Berthold Auerbach

... the scouts start out on their greatest undertaking. Their march takes them far from home, and the good-natured rivalry of the different patrols furnishes ...
— The Wonder Island Boys: Conquest of the Savages • Roger Thompson Finlay

... This good-natured, believing speech, touched Alan's heart. There was no indignation at her prize being carried off by one who was a mere stranger to her. There was no doubting or disbelieving his reality as the boy's father, but only unselfish ...
— Wilton School - or, Harry Campbell's Revenge • Fred E. Weatherly

... sight of her. She wore her best cap and shawl, and her cheeks were flushed. Behind her in the doorway sat a young sailor, with a cage on the ground beside him and a parrot perched on his forefinger close against his cheek. He glanced up with a shy, very good-natured smile, touched his forelock to Rosewarne, and went on whispering to ...
— Shining Ferry • Sir Arthur Thomas Quiller-Couch

... kitchen, where her courtesy won even the cantankerous cook for a friend, and from her the girl learned so much of her art that the cook could teach her no more. In the laundry the good-natured Irish woman who presided over that department of household economy gave her always so warm a welcome that the child came to think of the faithful woman as one of her choicest friends. Working with her over a little ironing board, Barbara quickly became expert in all the ...
— A Captain in the Ranks - A Romance of Affairs • George Cary Eggleston

... covert amusement her efforts to win him, and he had likewise noted her disappointment at her failure—not, he believed, that she cared so much for him personally, but that it hurt her vanity not to be successful with this big, good-natured, penniless bohemian, when men of wealth and position she made kneel at her feet. From afar he had watched her slowly changing point of view, how from an artificial ingenuousness she became serious, womanly, sincere. He knew ...
— The Easiest Way - A Story of Metropolitan Life • Eugene Walter and Arthur Hornblow

... Sue was a very easy, good-natured man, but had no learning, though he was reckoned a savan of the first water. Eugene knew this, and wickedly took advantage of it. His father—the doctor—was in the habit of delivering a course of botanical lectures to a circle of very select ladies, and Eugene suspected that his father, ...
— Paris: With Pen and Pencil - Its People and Literature, Its Life and Business • David W. Bartlett

... had no help at my disposal. There's Pao-y, it's true, but he too is made of the same stuff as the rest of them in here. Were I even to get him under my thumb, it would be of no earthly use whatever. Senior lady is as good-natured as a joss; and she likewise is no good. Miss Secunda is worse than useless. Besides, she doesn't belong to this place. Miss Quarta is only a child. That young fellow Lan and Huan-erh are, more than any of the others, like frozen ...
— Hung Lou Meng, Book II • Cao Xueqin

... live still farther north; one is King Winter, a cross and churlish old monarch, who is hard and cruel, and delights in making the poor suffer and weep; but the other neighbour is Santa Claus, a fine, good-natured, jolly old soul, who loves to do good, and who brings presents to the poor, and to ...
— Story of My Life • Helen Keller

... clipped, and the hair of his head, which had never been shaved, were of the colour of the feathers of the grey gull. His eyes were very white, and his teeth, which were only two in number, were green as the ooze raked up by the winds from the bottom of the sea. He was always good-natured and cheerful, save when he could not get plenty of meat, or when he missed his usual supply of the Indian weed, and the strong drink which made him see whales chasing deer in the woods, and frogs digging quawhogs. ...
— Traditions of the North American Indians, Vol. 2 (of 3) • James Athearn Jones

... (ante, p. 233), the latter by Mr. Downham (ante, p. 255). In licensing the new Divorce Tract, even though it did consist mainly of extracts from Bucer, Mr. Downham must have been either off his guard or very good-natured. ...
— The Life of John Milton Vol. 3 1643-1649 • David Masson

... birth of the child. The young, when allowed to live, took milk from their mothers until the ages of five or six years. The parents were extremely kind to their children; indeed, they were extraordinarily good-natured and considerate. Eight days after birth they perforated the lower lip of male children and inserted a pendant, taking that opportunity to give a name to the child. The lobes of the ears were only perforated at the age of ...
— Across Unknown South America • Arnold Henry Savage Landor

... of the little sorrel mare, whose white mane swings so mildly, and whose pale eyelashes droop so diffidently when some official hand at a crowded crossing brings her to a temporary stand-still. Not by the help of the coachman, who wears a sack-coat and a derby hat, and whose frank, good-natured face turns about occasionally for a friendly participation in the talk that is going on behind. Can it be, then, that any hopes for an accelerated movement are packed away in the bulging portmanteau which rests squeezed in between the coachman's legs? Two stout straps keep it from bursting, and ...
— With the Procession • Henry B. Fuller

... a nursery without a nurse, too, so that partly accounted for it. Meg, the eldest, was only sixteen, and could not be expected to be much of a disciplinarian, and the slatternly but good-natured girl, who was supposed to combine the duties of nursery-maid and housemaid, had so much to do in her second capacity that the first suffered considerably. She used to lay the nursery meals when none of the ...
— Seven Little Australians • Ethel Sybil Turner

... small self, was full of thanks to his preserver. Mr. Harper assured her that his feat was merely a little exertion of muscular strength, and at last grew evidently uncomfortable at being made so much of. Returning home with them, he would fain have crept away from the scene of his honours; but the good-natured, motherly-hearted Emma implored him ...
— Agatha's Husband - A Novel • Dinah Maria Craik (AKA: Dinah Maria Mulock)

... "Goddems" by the way,— For, 'tis odd, these mounseers,—tho' we've wasted our wealth And our strength, till we've thrown ourselves into a phthisic;— To cram down their throats an old King for their health. As we whip little children to make them take physic;— Yet, spite of our good-natured money and slaughter, They hate us, as Beelzebub hates holy-water! But who the deuce cares, DICK, as long as they nourish us Neatly as now, and good cookery flourishes— Long as, by bayonets protected, we Natties May have our full fling ...
— The Complete Poems of Sir Thomas Moore • Thomas Moore et al

... the forbidding grimness of the mountains, unthoughtful of their solemn warning, he took his place as much a part of the lonely scene as the hills themselves. Slouching easily in his seat he gave heed only to his team and to the road ahead. When he spoke to the mules his voice was a soft, good-natured drawl, as though he spoke from out a pleasing reverie, and though his words were often hard words they were carried to the animals on an under-current of fellowship and understanding. The long whip, with coiled lash, was in its socket at the end of the seat. The ...
— The Winning of Barbara Worth • Harold B Wright

... interest and all importance for Hilda as Mr. Cannon came into the room. The unconscious, expressive gesture, scornful and abrupt, with which she neglected them might have been terribly wounding to a young man more sensitive than Dayson. But Dayson, in his self-sufficient, good-natured mediocrity, had the hide of an alligator. He even judged her movement quite natural, for he was a flunkey born. Hilda gazed at her master with anxiety as he deposited his black walking-stick in the corner behind the door and loosed ...
— Hilda Lessways • Arnold Bennett

... stood back, and beckoned to the others: whereat they all came climbing up, save one, who stayed, apparently, to look out for the empty kayaks, which were floating about. They brought rather strong odors of smoke and greasy manginess; but more good-natured faces I ...
— Left on Labrador - or, The cruise of the Schooner-yacht 'Curlew.' as Recorded by 'Wash.' • Charles Asbury Stephens

... trump—a regular brick, and no mistake at all about the matter, as our little friend, Major Rodd, would say. And I say, Vernon, you've no idea what a delightful evening I spent after I'd tuck'd you in for the night. I never in my life met so entertaining a man before—a mere glimpse of his good-natured face is sufficient to drive away a very legion of blue-devils, although, by the by, those are fiends that never haunt me; and then we had a famous spread by way of supper—jugged hare—a woodcock—the first I've yet seen for the ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine, Volume 59, No. 364, February 1846 • Various

... unless I am deceived, they often migrate in company. But though they are so much together, and in certain of their ways very much alike, their habits of mind are widely dissimilar. The towhee is of a peculiarly even disposition. I have seldom heard him scold, or use any note less good-natured and musical than his pleasant cherawink. I have never detected him in a quarrel such as nearly all birds are once in a while guilty of, ungracious as it may seem to mention the fact; nor have I ever seen him ...
— Birds in the Bush • Bradford Torrey

... in lovely husbands," said Mrs. Almond; "I only believe in good ones. If he marries her, and she comes into Austin's money, they may get on. He will be an idle, amiable, selfish, and doubtless tolerably good-natured fellow. But if she doesn't get the money and he finds himself tied to her, Heaven have mercy on her! He will have none. He will hate her for his disappointment, and take his revenge; he will be pitiless and cruel. Woe betide poor Catherine! I recommend you ...
— Washington Square • Henry James

... YANK—[Half good-natured again—contemptuously.] Aw, take it easy. Leave him alone. He ain't woith a punch. Drink up. Here's how, whoever owns dis. [He takes a long swallow from his bottle. All drink with him. In a flash all is hilarious amiability again, back-slapping, ...
— The Hairy Ape • Eugene O'Neill

... the lazy, good-natured boy, whom they chiefly remembered before his college days, had always been well enough liked among those who had since grown to be first mates and ship captains in the little port where he was born and grew up. They had now all ...
— Henry James, Jr. • William Dean Howells

... part of the money which Perdue had given me. I explained that her husband had worked overtime and that the State, following an old custom, had sent her the wages of his extra labor. She was not a very good-natured woman; she said that the State and the rest of us ought to be ashamed of ourselves for having robbed her of her husband, and she declared that if she ever got money enough she would sue old Conkwright and the sheriff and everybody else. I was glad enough to ...
— The Jucklins - A Novel • Opie Read

... investigations. He maintained that the money was his, and was quite indignant when it was hinted that he must have stolen it; but unluckily he destroyed any belief in his honesty by invariably contradicting himself as to how he came by it. But he was such a good-natured, pleasant-spoken man that we let him sit by our side and prevaricate, till we bade him cease ...
— The Land of the Black Mountain - The Adventures of Two Englishmen in Montenegro • Reginald Wyon

... him to seek thy fortune with thee," said the good-natured Augustinian, not knowing how truly he spoke. "Come in, my lads, here's a drink for him. What said you was your uncle's name?" and as Ambrose repeated it, "Birkenholt! Living on a corrody at Hyde! Ay! ay! My lads, I have a call to Winchester to-morrow, you'd best tarry ...
— The Armourer's Prentices • Charlotte M. Yonge

... tells me that not infrequently when she called at the Chinese homes, and they set before her a dish of which she was especially fond, and she had eaten of it as much as she thought she ought, the ladies would ask in a good-natured way in reply to some of her remarks about her voracious appetite, "Shall we get down and knock our heads on the floor, and beg you not to eat too much, and make yourself sick, like the eunuchs do to the Emperor?" There is nothing to wonder at that Kuang Hsu, without parental restraint, and fawned ...
— Court Life in China • Isaac Taylor Headland

... tossed there in a sort of midden. When he found that I was persistent in my plan, he sat down at the edge of the gully, buried his face in his clumsy hands and wept silently, shuddering at every bough I lifted. Greatly interested now, I called Roger, and we worked together, assisted by the good-natured Italian retained now as gardener and assistant boatman (his name was Rafaello, and he was a not-too-unhappy bachelor, for, as he said, a girl who would run off with a man's rival a week before the wedding would have made but a doubtful wife for the ...
— Margarita's Soul - The Romantic Recollections of a Man of Fifty • Ingraham Lovell

... Bonner returned, and was admitted. There was some conversation upon indifferent matters; the pope making good-natured inquiries about Bennet, and speaking warmly and kindly ...
— History of England from the Fall of Wolsey to the Death of Elizabeth. Vol. II. • James Anthony Froude

... flew to Avrillia's pink bed-room, and there was the suet, in the midst of Avrillia's lacy pin-cushions and crystal toilet-bottles. They gathered it up and hurried out to the Birds, who were now eating crumbs and looking fairly good-natured; though you could tell by the way Yassuh's knees trembled that he had found ...
— The Garden of the Plynck • Karle Wilson Baker

... You may buy gimlets at a penny each, white cotton thread at four balls for a halfpenny, and penknives, corkscrews, gunpowder, writing-paper, and many other articles as cheap or cheaper than you can purchase them in England. The shopkeeper is very good-natured; he will show you everything he has, and does not seem to mind if you buy nothing. He bates a little, but not so much as the Klings, who almost always ask twice what they are willing to take. If you buy a few things from him, he will speak ...
— The Malay Archipelago - Volume I. (of II.) • Alfred Russel Wallace

... William Campbell, a citizen of Kentucky, who had received permission to come with us, in a soldier's place. He was a man of two hundred and twenty pounds weight, handsome as Apollo, and of immense physical strength, which he was not slow to use when roused, though good-natured and ...
— Daring and Suffering: - A History of the Great Railroad Adventure • William Pittenger

... opinion, the cowboy is not a dangerous man to those not looking for trouble. There are occasional exceptions, of course, but they belong to the universal genus of bully, and can be found among any class. Attend to your own business, be cool and good-natured, and your skin is safe. Then when it is really "up to you," be a man; you will ...
— The Mountains • Stewart Edward White

... me a most cordial reception," and he adds, "If I was not much more inclined for geology than the other branches of Natural History, I am sure Mr Lyell's and Lonsdale's kindness ought to fix me. You cannot conceive anything more thoroughly good-natured than the heart-and-soul manner in which he put himself in my place and thought what would be best to ...
— Darwin and Modern Science • A.C. Seward and Others

... the entertainment of the people, when an order arrived from Bengham to prevent the representation, because it did not become God-fearing Christians to take pleasure in such vain amusements. The nobleman, not wishing to dispute the point, gave up his good-natured intentions. ...
— A New Voyage Round the World, in the years 1823, 24, 25, and 26, Vol. 2 • Otto von Kotzebue

... happened she was stopping at Hallam, and she brought a change into the atmosphere of the place. The squire was anxious, fearful of his son's undertakings, and yet partly proud of his commercial and social recognition. But the good-natured evenness of his happy temperament was quite gone. Elizabeth, too, had little cares and hospitable duties; she was often busy and often pre-occupied. It was necessary to have a great deal of company, ...
— The Hallam Succession • Amelia Edith Barr

... his subordinates, was one of the most genial of men. Kind and good-natured, he at times failed to act as decisively as occasion required, deterred by the fact that, should he do so, some of his subordinates would suffer. His restless activity led him to give attention to details that he should have been entirely relieved ...
— The Army of the Cumberland • Henry M. Cist

... pause; Egbert was regarding the speaker intently. The latter's countenance was about as expressive as that of a wooden idol, a good-natured one. Mr. Phillips glanced once more at the clock, languidly closed his eyes, opened them, sighed for the third time, ...
— Fair Harbor • Joseph Crosby Lincoln

... you might drop it from the top of the house, and do it no harm. But though you really are a very good girl, and as good-natured as anybody can possibly be, remember, you have your faults, like other people; and, if I were you, the next time I wanted to assert anything energetically, I would assert it by 'my badness,' not ...
— The Crown of Wild Olive • John Ruskin

... the last learned schoolmaster who was professedly an amateur of the rod; and in that profession there was more of humour and affectation than of reality, for with all his habitual affectation and his occasional brutality, Parr was a good-natured, generous, warm-hearted man; there was a coarse husk and a hard shell, like the cocoa-nut, but the core was filled with the ...
— The Mirror of Literature, Amusement, and Instruction - Vol. 13, No. 355., Saturday, February 7, 1829 • Various

... Westminster petition, Sir Charles Wager (428) gave his son a ship, and the next day the father came down and voted against him. The son has since been east away; but they concealed it from the father, that he might not absent himself. However, as we have our good-natured men too on our side, one of his own countrymen went and told him of it in the House. The old man, who looked like Lazarus at his resuscitation, bore it with great resolution, and said, he knew why he was told of it, but when he thought his country in danger, he would not ...
— The Letters of Horace Walpole, Volume 1 • Horace Walpole

... I more glad to see a man," he said. "I'm damned if we scapegraces have not missed thy good-looking face. Thou art a fine fellow, Roxholm—and good-natured—ay, and modest, too—for all thy beauty and learning. Many a man, with half thou hast, would wear grand Court airs to a rattle-pated rascal like Tom Tantillion. Wilford does it—and he is but a Viscount, and for all his straight ...
— His Grace of Osmonde • Frances Hodgson Burnett

... the arrival of the letter, I had still found that inexplicable lightening which I mentioned before, and strong enough to warrant a revival of the pros and cons. An important pro which I had not thought of before was that after all it was a good-natured piece of unselfishness to join Davies; for he had spoken of the want of a pal, and seemed honestly to be in need of me. I almost clutched at this consideration. It was an admirable excuse, when I reached my office ...
— Riddle of the Sands • Erskine Childers

... drives me mad at times. And your dresses—they haunt me in my dreams! I never before imagined that dress was of so much importance in this world." She was so outspoken and withal so natural, that both Blanch and Bessie burst into a peal of good-natured ...
— When Dreams Come True • Ritter Brown

... that just then made life bearable. Suspense and his own powerlessness turned him sullen; he went about his tasks under Hito's eye with a dogged surliness at which his fellow-slaves laughed in private and dared not challenge him in good-natured raillery. ...
— Nicanor - Teller of Tales - A Story of Roman Britain • C. Bryson Taylor

... have been strangely neglected in their education; good-humoured and good-natured undoubtedly, but little better than hoydens after all. Lord Down met Lord and Lady Coventry at Calais, and offered to send her ladyship a tent-bed, for fear of bugs at the inn. "Oh dear!" said she, "I had rather be bit to death than lie one night from ...
— Blackwood's Edinburgh Magazine — Volume 55, No. 340, February, 1844 • Various



Words linked to "Good-natured" :   even-tempered, agreeable, amiable, equable, good-humored, good-tempered, pleasant, good-naturedness, placid, ill-natured, good-humoured, nature, kind



Copyright © 2024 Dictionary One.com